October 21, 2010 • 30 mins
Police radar guns find drivers who are speeding, radar detectors detect the use of radar guns -- and then there are radar detector detectors! In this episode, Scott and Ben take a look at how radar works, as well as various types of radar equipment.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, everybody,
welcome to the podcast. I'm Scott Hey, I'm Ben Hey,
Scott Hey. We're gonna start things off today with a
bit of listener mail. As that sound that sounds great?
(00:23):
All right, here we go. We got this note from
I'm gonna say Ariadney. Uh, yeah, we've had this listener before.
We had this listener righting before. But I had trouble
with the name before. I didn't get a phonetic spelling.
But um, I'm gonna say Ariadney. We hope that's right
I do. And um, I'll see this Labor day. This
(00:44):
last Labor Day, I was sailing through western Kansas on
my way home to Kansas City. Um, something about the
way of the car. Um. I got a speeding ticket
for going eighty six and a seventy mile per hour zone.
And the cops that I have three options. Number one,
pay the ticket by al Number two, pay the ticket online,
or number three show up in court. Um, choke up
(01:05):
on the court date and contest the ticket. Well, I
think I can guess which one area and he chose
here because it says in court? What would a person
have to say or do to get out of the
speeding ticket. I'd love to hear a podcast about how
to you know, how to argue traffic violations. And this
is very specific. If that episode could arrive before October,
that would be all the better. So it's just crackt. Yeah,
(01:28):
I know me too. I was like, I'm I need
this right now. Give me the best advice. Unfortunately I
got the bad news. Here are you gonna do the caveat? Well,
why don't you go ahead? All right? Unfortunately, we are
not legal experts, and we're not really in a position
where we can give legal advice. Um, we can, you
(01:52):
know what. I think that's a great idea for podcasts.
I like the idea of traffic violations maybe in the future.
So Area and we got together and we were thinking,
how can we talk about this? And uh, naturally, whenever Scott,
whenever you and I are hanging out, we pretty much
go on tangents. We had tan gentile conversation, which is
(02:16):
why we ended up doing a podcast about radar guns exactly. No, no,
that's that's exactly what we spun off on this. And
and the thing is, I mean I wish we could
help you out, but we can't. We just can't do it.
There's there are websites that are devoted to something like this,
you know too. You know, here's what you may want
to do, and you may want to go over this
checklist and make sure that everything was handled, you know,
by the books and you know. But that's about as
(02:38):
far as we can go with telling you what to
do here in this case. So sorry about that, but um,
I wanted to get the message out there that yeah,
we we read the mail, We're we're thinking about it,
but we just can't do it. We're we we've got
we've got tricks up our sleeves, but none of none
of those none of those tricks, unfortunately, are telling people
how to get out of it now. All right, So
(02:58):
we're talking about radar detectors, right, because then I started
talking about radar detectors at this point, and how how
the heck did police check our speeds on the roads,
because there's a variety of different ways. Yeah, they well,
I was gonna say they they can make it up.
I'm kidding. But in truth, there are there are times
(03:20):
when people are clearly exceeding the speed limit. To the
point where they are, um, unsafe drivers. And at that point,
I don't think a police officer needs a radar gun
if they see someone, you know, doing nine D and
a thirty five or yeah, it's not necessary to have
a radar gun at that point. Then it's just a
(03:40):
you know what I'm gonna is it? What would it be?
Reckless driving? What would ye It's like it would be
reckless driving, unsafe for conditions or something like that. You know, Um, yeah,
I understand. I don't know what exactly you would be
ticketed for, but yeah, it's it's not necessary to have
an exact reading in that case, in that type of situation,
when you're clearly a danger, you're out of control role
(04:00):
of the vehicle. Um. What we are talking about, though,
is the very precise manner in which they do measure
your speed, and for that they use several different things
and and some of them are not electronic, don't don't
most are, but some are. Okay. So so we're talking
is most people have probably heard, you know, radar guns. Okay,
(04:22):
then there's uh, I'm gonna say, lidar is that right? Yeah? Okay,
lit our guns. Um, it's also detection devices which can
detect your radar device. Um, they can do something called VASCAR,
which we'll talk about later. Um. Well, there's just a
bunch of different pacing. There's pacing. Yeah, there's a couple.
There's a couple of different ways. And I am I
(04:43):
missing any there. I think that's about it. That sounds
that sounds like most of them. The thing is, man,
whenever I see I'm just gonna give one one piece
of advice to people who are out. If you're out
on the interstate or something and you see the police officer,
the trooper or whomever it may be, um with the
(05:04):
gun out measure for speed, don't slam on your brakes
because there looks like when if you think about it,
if you're trying to catch someone's speeding, right, and you're
seeing this line of cars coming up and they're all
kind of go on the same speed and you want
to clock one of them, who are you gonna look for?
Are you gonna look for everybody's just driving like nothing's wrong?
Or the person who slams on their brakes and makes
(05:24):
their hood dip down the front end that the ground.
That's right. I've heard that. I mean, I'm sure there's
something to that. And that's one of the things that
you know, when we talk about all this as well
as we get into it. One of the things that
is that if you're in a group of cars, it's
much more difficult for them to single you out. If
you are alone, you're gonna get caught just about no
(05:44):
matter what. Because you know, some of the methods that
we talk about, some of the detection detection devices that
we're going to talk about, they're effective, but only if
you're in a group of people or somewhere is some
way to um, you're you're indistinguishable in a group that
you know, you can't figure out which one is that.
If you're the only car around, um, and he's got
(06:05):
a clock reading of a vehicle traveling and above a
certain speed, that's you. That is different. So okay, so
we're getting kind of we're getting off this. Um, let's
see where are you going to go? You know, actually,
let's just talk about this real quick. Radar detectors have
been around since the nineteen seventies. Right, yeah, that's wild.
(06:28):
I know. Now radar they've been using radar to clock
people since the nineteen fifties. But um, the detection devices
wouldn't come around until about the seventies. And if you recall,
those were called I think the orisin one is called
a fuzzbuster. Yeah you've probably heard that, just you know,
the slang term being used in the past. I know
I did. Uh, they were called that for a long
(06:48):
time up until least early nineties. I've heard them called fuzzbusters. Um.
And then there was one after that called the Super
Snooper I think was the name of that one. And
these are giant things. It's like a brick, yeah, that
you put on your on your dashboard and they're very
very obvious, have one big light on them, you know,
volume control and that's about it. And that's fine as
long as you're in a state where those devices are
(07:09):
legal exactly. Yeah, that's right. And there's uh, let's see,
I got a list of places where those are legal
and illegal. You want to Yeah, well segue into that.
Well let's see real real quick. Let's set the scene. Okay,
So what we're talking about, ways that people ways that
officers I guess catch you speeding are um. There's a
(07:32):
lot of science behind it, but basically this is a
really weird part. I just want to get this out. Now,
the same companies that sell those radar detectors sell the
radar guns, right, Yeah, that's uh, it's kind of a
funny thing. I don't know if it's the exact same
or not. Man, I've heard this in the past. I've
(07:52):
heard it too, And the funny thing is that I
swear i've heard that, but I know that the way
it works is kind of a cat and mouse game, yes,
and that you know, one one improves just a little
bit the other one. You know, they kind of they
sidestep it and figure like, well, we'll up the band
with on this or you know, we're going to adjust
at somehow so that it's undetectable, and the uh, you know,
(08:14):
then the other one it's up to them to update
in order to be able to catch up with that,
whether that's the detection or the device that actually clocks them.
Oh wait, Scott, hold on a second. I did this. Uh,
I did this kind of backwards. Okay, this was my bad.
We're talking about these things, but we're not talking about
how radar detectors work. Well, we need to know that. Yeah,
(08:34):
I'm sorry, man, you want to want as dependance as penance.
I will I will go ahead and just break this down,
and we get a lot of help from an excellent
article how radar detectors work. Isn't that handy? That is
handy and dandy, my friends. Um, okay, So basically here's
how it works. We live in a modern world. They're
(08:57):
invisible waves of radio signal all around us. Sorry, don't
where I got some tinfoil hats where you put those on?
So for any kind of remote any I'm sorry, not remote,
any kind of receiver that picks up radio signals, it
(09:17):
has to be tuned to a specific type of single
specific frequency. Um. And the reason that has to do
that is otherwise it will respond every time something transmits something. Right,
you know that that's just poor design. So the like
the receiver in a radio, right, we have this example
(09:39):
in the article, picks up the A M and the
FM frequencies or bands I'm sorry, bands would be those
and um, the police, however, use a different frequency because
you know, of course, you don't want to be driving
around listening to NPR or something and then here um
her police chatter. Right. Well, a lot of people would
(10:03):
actually I think a lot of people would. I would,
I would probably be there. Yes, strike what I said,
it just doesn't happen radio, right, So a radar detector
then is built to receive these frequencies. You gotta hand
up question. No, no, no, I'm just I'm just thinking
(10:24):
that they just thinking because um, you're talking about the guns, right, No,
I was talking about the detectors in the dash. The
detectors in the dash sense these uh, these frequencies emitted
from these radar guns. And the way that the radar
guns work, which we should segue into, uh, the way
(10:45):
they work is they spread out there actually transmitters and
receivers because it doesn't matter if they shoot out, um,
if they shoot out something toward a vehicle, because they'll
never know how how fast it's going. Less, they also
receive the light bouncing back right or not light excuse me,
(11:06):
radio waves and um. But we'll get into the light too.
I think we are going to talk about lights. You're
jumping ahead, I'm jumping all over. I'm like the clintin
Tarantino film overs. So yeah, So basically, these detectors are
tuned to pick up the frequency range used by the
police for radar guns. And so because radar guns amit
(11:29):
um they kind of have like a cone or a
sort of a circular dish antenna that concentrates the radio
signal and this wave spreads out over an area. And
so that's why you can get a beep or notice
from your radar detector when you cannot see a police officer,
(11:52):
which is like the whole point, you're catching it early.
You're you're catching early in fury. Now, these things, of
course aren't gonna do any good because the receivers, they're
not going to do you any good at all. If
a police officers as a speed trap without a gun,
or if a police officer comes up behind you and
turns one on, you're it's just there's you're getting into
(12:14):
some of the different ways that that they can catch
you besides using radar or lists even a right well,
boll okay, I understand, I get it now that you
know that that's just it's a receiver or senator and
as a rather transmitter and receiver for the gun. The
radar detector that you have in your car is just
a resistor receiver and it's tuned to to that band
(12:36):
that the gun is tuned to to their frequencies. Okay,
So so if you go down the list of of
the different types of bands that they have that are
you know, the bands that police radar uses. UH, there
are several different types. There's the X band, there's a
K band, and there's the k A band UM. Sometimes
they call that the super wide k A band. UM.
X band is really one of the easiest to detect,
(12:58):
and it's it is have notes here that are long gone.
They've gone away somehow. But UM, I heard that very
few police departments actually use UM the X band anymore.
So if you're buying a radar detector X band, you
know it may also have XPAN, but don't buy one
with just X band. Be sadly mistaken that, you know,
if that's gonna take company, you know, unless you're in
(13:20):
select states. And again you can look at these articles
and find out which ones which k BAN which is
I don't know, it's probably one of the more frequently
used ones at this point. UM. And then there's also
the K A band, which is a really wide frequency
range and it exceeds the k BAN limits UM and
again they call it wide band or super wide k
(13:42):
A ban UM. And this is the one that UM.
You know, if you have one if you have a
detector that can detect K band, it will not detect
K A band, So you have to be specific about
getting one. So you see what I mean when I
mentioned earlier this cat and mouse. You know, they start
out X and they moved up to K, then they
moved at to k A and then you know, who
(14:03):
knows what it's gonna be wats. But but here's the
thing ben about all these Now, remember that we said
that the radar detectors are receivers, right, yes, okay, well
did you know that there are radar detector detectors? Say
that one more time. Radar detector detectors. I have her
in Tennessee, we say, heard, tell of her? Tell of this? Understood? Yeah.
(14:26):
They they're used by the police. And if you're in
an area where radar detectors are illegal, the police can
scan traffic for people that are using a detector and
they'll be able to detect that you have a detector
in your car because of the frequency that that detector
gives off. There's a there's a um a signature, um
(14:46):
bandwidth that it's given off that they receive a signal.
Are these just your guard these just um ordinary police?
Officers are these special radar detector detective detectives. No, no,
I mean sorry, very good radar detector detector detector very good, no, no, okay,
so it but it's the point and they're actually a
(15:09):
small when any police officer can use Any police officer
can use those. But it's it's of course more prevalent
in the in the you know, the states and communities
in the world that um, you know, the the use
of detectors are illegal. And the thing is if they're
again this is another case where you know, if they're
they're broadcasting this the signal, you know, these r d
(15:30):
D signals at a big group of vehicles, they can't
tell which one has the radar detector um and they
have to be able to single you out. And if
you're the only vehicle around, of course they've got you know,
you're the one, okay because uh and remember they do
have the right to search your car, so um, you'll
be caught with it, so just be careful. All right. Now,
let's talk about different type of type, different type of radar.
(15:54):
But it's not really radar. It's uh, it's using light
like you mentioned earlier, some sort of light I see
it are because it gives you an idea of what
we're talking about here. It's the same type of thing.
This is a laser system. UM. It's called lidar, and
it's an acronym for light detection and raging okay, and
lidar is it's very similar. But it uses concentrated light
(16:17):
pulses of light and it reads them much in the
same way that you know, the radar detective works with
radio waves. This works with light rays, light waves confused,
but it you know, analyzes them the same way to
determine the vehicle speeds. So UM, the light beams are
a lot faster, and they're a lot more concentrated. They're
very very centralized. You can you can focus this much
(16:39):
greater than you can a radar gun such as said
spread exactly. And these are the type that if you
drive by a police officer and they've got the gun
up to their eyeball and they're looking through the through
the device at your vehicle, that's a lidar gun at
three US and there's a laser. Now let's also let's
also point out that these, uh, these are not visible light. No,
(17:02):
these are these are beyond visible light and UM so
you're not going to see the beam of light. Of course,
there are ways to Um, you may you may wonder
how you're gonna mask this or how you're gonna be caught.
There are detectors that detect this, and they detect you know,
if there's a m if there's a like a specific target,
you know, they will under they'll they'll be able to
read that. You know, it's quick because it's on off
(17:24):
um they call it, UM, I think it's popping's what
they call it. Because they just turn on and off.
It's real quick. He doesn't remain on like a radar
what remain on, so you don't get a constant signal.
Even more difficult to to exactly exactly. So one of
the things that you can do for um, you know,
protection in your case, I guess if you're a speeder,
(17:44):
is that you can buy a stealth coding for reflective
surfaces on your car, which include your headlights, your license plate,
your fog lights, something like that on the front of
the vehicle. Um. This stuff is expensive though, really yeah,
real expensive. How much is it? Five and a half ounces?
It's called stealth coding or something like that. You can
(18:04):
you can find versions of this online nine bucks and
you you brush it on with a brush. You brush
it on all the reflective surfaces of your car on
the front. I guess the next question is how much
is the ticket? Yeah? Right, yeah, Well they I mean
they have jammers. They have That's the other thing is
there's there are jammer systems and and that's effective with
laser system laser systems right there there. Yes, uh, Scott,
(18:28):
what I think you're talking about? And tell me if
I'm on base here is you're talking about the h
I guess they came along earlier later more recently, the
newer types of uh, non passive radar detectors. Yes, because
they jam it, they send out confusing signal that that
(18:51):
that disturbs the signal that the gun is receiving, sent
in receiving, and it's just enough to allow you to
adjust your speed. So what this does is this gives
you a little bit extra a little bit extra time
to to you know, back yourself down, get yourself within
the limit, you know, as you see it or you
hear it or whatever happens you know with the with
(19:12):
this device, this type of device, But they have radar
jammers and they also have laser jammers and um it
just masks your car's signal um that that they're receiving
and it's it does that via you know, well radio
noise on the radar signal um on on a laser system,
it has its own LEDs that are built in that
(19:32):
that produced kind of UM I don't know shield. I
guess almost like a light beam shield around your car.
That it sounds cool. Well, it kind of scrambles the
information exactly. It doesn't It doesn't receive the light in
the way that it normally would, and it confuses it
just enough so that you can bring it down to
to the right speed and then when they then they
(19:54):
check again hopefully you're within the range and then stuff,
I know it. And you know what their videos on
line of people using you know, these jammers and how
they work and everything and testing them and everything. But
I don't know, you know, there's another thing you can use,
um And I just thought about this. This is a okay.
The original detector detector was called VG and I think
(20:15):
there was VG two and the VG two then was
moved on to then they went up to something called
a specter. When there's a one, two and three specter.
So again this cat mouse thing back and forth. You know,
if you have you can get you can get a
radar detector with v G two invisibility, so you can
get so see that. That's what I'm saying is like
(20:36):
this is so back and forth that you know, like
they they've got a radar gun, they shoot it at
your car. You've got a radar detector, so you know
that they're shooting at your car. They've also got a
radar detector detector, and they know that you've got a
radar radar detector, right, so that you've got Now you've
got a v G two invisibility device on your detector
to shield yourself from that. And then they say, well,
(20:58):
I can't really tell what they're doing there, so I'm
gonna shoot them again. And you've got this jammer system
on there too. So it's just this maddening back and
forth you know that happens. And the problem is that
now we're starting to talk about radar detectors that are
in the five s dollar range, maybe even more. And
every time they upgrade this, you've got upgrade your equipment
as well, so it's getting expensive, just like any other
(21:21):
form of electronic device. These these devices do have a
shelf life. You know what what is it, planned opts,
lessons or whatever it's called. Yeah, exactly. You know they
know what they know when it's done. And you know,
you might if you're somebody who is used to having
one of these things around you, you will probably end
up buying one, you know, probably. Yeah. I I have
(21:44):
never owned one, never owned radar detector. I never had one,
just because I was never I think growing up, I
was never really clear. And I thought, and this is
a concern I've heard from other people. I thought, if
you get pulled over for anything, you know, um, people
will police officers will rightly make certain assumptions about you. Yeah,
(22:05):
they make notice of that. Yeah, because they'll know they
know what those look like. And I mean, at at best,
it's gonna be a funny conversation to you in the
copy where they say, uh, yeah, your brake lights out,
can just go get that fixed and go? Is that
the new the woman v G two invisibility be like
(22:25):
yeah kind of yeah, yeah, do a lot of speeding,
do your son? Uh, just them into detection. Let's see,
I see, I'll be right back. License and registration please
go right. But now you want to hear about just
a couple of low tech way this non electronic. Now,
well there's one that's electronic that I'm gonna mention, and
that's pacing. Um, okay, it can be done both ways.
(22:49):
Pacing can be done with a radar gun from behind.
You know that they can. The the police vehicles are
calibrated from the factory with the exact speed, so are
the guns. The guns are matched to the speed. You know,
they know exactly they're they're electronically calibrated, so they in
traffic will know a vehicle is you know, the device
itself knows that if you're in traffic going forty miles
(23:09):
an hour and you see a car pass you and
it's going, according to the device, thirty miles an hour
away from the car, it knows it's going seventy miles now, etcetera. Okay, Um,
that's that's the electronic version of this. Pacing is when
they just pull up next to you and they match
your speed in traffic and you don't recognize that they're
there next to you, and they're they're coming up behind
(23:30):
you and they stay with you. And I think there's
a limit a time limit. It has to be like
an eighth of a mile or something like that. There
has to be a measured distance where um, and I
wouldn't quote that, but something like that where they have
to match you for an eighth of a mile in
order to be able to get an honest reading, eliminate
the margin of beer as much as exactly. Yeah, yeah,
I paste him for you know, half a mile at
(23:51):
seventy five miles an hour, and that's why I gave
you a ticket for fifteen over whatever it was. Um.
Maybe one of the lowest tech ways to do this
ben just timing a vehicle between two known distance two
known points. The way that the way that we still
do the world's fastest like the land speed record exactly, yeah, exactly,
(24:13):
and the way that um, you know these are these
are the the way that drag races are measured. It's
just timing between a known distance at one point point
A and point b. Um. They do this from either
from a vehicle, and they can do it with a camera,
so it doesn't even have to be a man device.
They can they can do that with a camera and
and like a lot of these sites have said, it's
it's difficult to argue with videotape in court. It is tough. Yeah,
(24:36):
I would think so. So they either tape this happening
they do it with I mean, it can go as
low tech is having a stop watch in hand, um,
or it can be as high tech as you know,
having a timing device like what you find at the
at the racetrack. Um. The other way is that if
you're ever driven by the signs that say that the
speed is monitored from the air. Yes, that is how
they do it from the air. Also, they have large
(24:58):
marks on the ground that are marked off at you know,
a quarter mile, half mile, a mile, big marks that
you know it would be visible from the air. You
don't necessarily see them. They're on the side of the road.
They're they're wide, you know, big markings, but they're not
for you. That for the helicopter exactly. And they time
they time the time it travels for you to go
between point A and point B. And then there's a
formula that they that they plug those numbers into and
(25:18):
that determines your speed. And from there it's just a
matter of radio on ahead and and having the police
pull you over. Wow. So it's yeah, it's a lot
more simple than you might think. And uh, you know,
you'd never ever see a helicopter coming up from behind
or a small airplane. Can it can be done for
a small airplane, um, flying car whatever? Thank you, that's nice.
(25:39):
There's a little olive branch there. You're welcome. So okay,
we're going to reveal though. And of course this is
the part where another some other podcasts might make it
sound like a joke and like they're being clever or whatever.
But I think it's already clear that the best way
to avoid a speeding ticket is don't speed. Yeah, that's it,
(26:02):
you know, that is it? Yeah? You gotta. I mean
that's the only way to avoid a ticket, really is
is to just not do it. Not speed? Yeah, And
there's a lot of that kind of stuff. Is um
the officer's discretion, you know what I mean too? So
have you ever received a warning ticket? Uh, just a citation?
(26:22):
Like yeah, I've I've received a citation just I mean
just a warning ticket that says, hey, slow down. Next time,
I'll give you a real ticket. Yeah I got one
of those before. But um, this the I love that
you mentioned the camera thing because real real quick, I
am sure I know some of our listeners are around
uh intersections that have the cameras watching you. Um there
(26:48):
prevalent in Atlanta, you know what I mean, corner and
uh sometimes when you and I are off the air,
we're talking about different tricks that we see people try
to pull, like high in your license plate and stuff. Man,
I buddy of mine actually got um caught at an
intersection by a camera UM running the red light, and
(27:12):
she tried to argue about it. But well, from what
I understand, I don't know if this is true, bro,
but from what I understand when she went to court
to argue about it, that the hat that she was
wearing was the same hat she was wearing on the tape. Yeah,
and she was saying that's not me. I don't know
(27:33):
what she was saying. The tattoo on the forearm, yeah yeah, yeah, sorry,
I wasn't right, and social Security number on the side
of the car. But so, in my my opinion, it's
it's just so much easier to not have to participate
in this crazy laser radar arms race, because that's essentially
(27:56):
what it is. And UM, A lot of people though,
tell me that they're telling me um, you know, thank
God from my radar detector or um, I've only heard
people say that about radar detectors. I don't know anybody
who has shown up in my house and said, thank
Goodness for my jammer. No, no, you know, I've never
(28:17):
known anybody with the jammer. I don't think. I don't
know if you know what, Maybe they just don't talk
about it. Maybe that's yeah, you don't want a lot
of people to know. Maybe so it would be an
expensive feature on some of the newer models. So yeah,
I would think. Yeah, I don't know if it's factory
on any cars, that's sure. I don't think so. It
all should be on some cars and should be Yeah,
(28:38):
they should just let people be honest. If you buy Bugatti,
it should just come with some radar equipment. That's right,
complete stealth covering. Yeah, I'm gonna look into that. I
love this idea of this James Bond fantasy Monty Carlo
I'm building in my head. It's not invisibility pain, you
know that. Okay, well, I think you've maybe thought I'm
(29:00):
never mind. I'm going through here. I'll figure it out. Okay,
just got it. Let let the inspiration strike and while
I go away to uh wait for that stroke of
revelation that will let me know how to make my
car uh possibly invisible. Uh, we're gonna have to let
these folks go scott with time for us to head out.
(29:22):
Been long enough. What do you think about Facebook? Twitter?
I think I think we've got them. Yeah, we're we're
car stuff on their car stuff hs W. I think
on Twitter and we'd get the blog. We got a
great blog, got the got the website which has a
million articles. What I'm gonna say it is a billion articles,
billion auto articles, and I just about anything you'd want,
(29:45):
anything under the sun. And if you don't find it
on our website, you can send us an email at
car stuff at how stuff works dot com for more
on this and thousands of other topics. Is that how
stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think,
Send an email to podcast head how stuff works dot com.
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, everybody,
welcome to the podcast. I'm Scott Hey, I'm Ben Hey,
Scott Hey. We're gonna start things off today with a
bit of listener mail. As that sound that sounds great?
(00:23):
All right, here we go. We got this note from
I'm gonna say Ariadney. Uh, yeah, we've had this listener before.
We had this listener righting before. But I had trouble
with the name before. I didn't get a phonetic spelling.
But um, I'm gonna say Ariadney. We hope that's right
I do. And um, I'll see this Labor day. This
(00:44):
last Labor Day, I was sailing through western Kansas on
my way home to Kansas City. Um, something about the
way of the car. Um. I got a speeding ticket
for going eighty six and a seventy mile per hour zone.
And the cops that I have three options. Number one,
pay the ticket by al Number two, pay the ticket online,
or number three show up in court. Um, choke up
(01:05):
on the court date and contest the ticket. Well, I
think I can guess which one area and he chose
here because it says in court? What would a person
have to say or do to get out of the
speeding ticket. I'd love to hear a podcast about how
to you know, how to argue traffic violations. And this
is very specific. If that episode could arrive before October,
that would be all the better. So it's just crackt. Yeah,
(01:28):
I know me too. I was like, I'm I need
this right now. Give me the best advice. Unfortunately I
got the bad news. Here are you gonna do the caveat? Well,
why don't you go ahead? All right? Unfortunately, we are
not legal experts, and we're not really in a position
where we can give legal advice. Um, we can, you
(01:52):
know what. I think that's a great idea for podcasts.
I like the idea of traffic violations maybe in the future.
So Area and we got together and we were thinking,
how can we talk about this? And uh, naturally, whenever Scott,
whenever you and I are hanging out, we pretty much
go on tangents. We had tan gentile conversation, which is
(02:16):
why we ended up doing a podcast about radar guns exactly. No, no,
that's that's exactly what we spun off on this. And
and the thing is, I mean I wish we could
help you out, but we can't. We just can't do it.
There's there are websites that are devoted to something like this,
you know too. You know, here's what you may want
to do, and you may want to go over this
checklist and make sure that everything was handled, you know,
by the books and you know. But that's about as
(02:38):
far as we can go with telling you what to
do here in this case. So sorry about that, but um,
I wanted to get the message out there that yeah,
we we read the mail, We're we're thinking about it,
but we just can't do it. We're we we've got
we've got tricks up our sleeves, but none of none
of those none of those tricks, unfortunately, are telling people
how to get out of it now. All right, So
(02:58):
we're talking about radar detectors, right, because then I started
talking about radar detectors at this point, and how how
the heck did police check our speeds on the roads,
because there's a variety of different ways. Yeah, they well,
I was gonna say they they can make it up.
I'm kidding. But in truth, there are there are times
(03:20):
when people are clearly exceeding the speed limit. To the
point where they are, um, unsafe drivers. And at that point,
I don't think a police officer needs a radar gun
if they see someone, you know, doing nine D and
a thirty five or yeah, it's not necessary to have
a radar gun at that point. Then it's just a
(03:40):
you know what I'm gonna is it? What would it be?
Reckless driving? What would ye It's like it would be
reckless driving, unsafe for conditions or something like that. You know, Um, yeah,
I understand. I don't know what exactly you would be
ticketed for, but yeah, it's it's not necessary to have
an exact reading in that case, in that type of situation,
when you're clearly a danger, you're out of control role
(04:00):
of the vehicle. Um. What we are talking about, though,
is the very precise manner in which they do measure
your speed, and for that they use several different things
and and some of them are not electronic, don't don't
most are, but some are. Okay. So so we're talking
is most people have probably heard, you know, radar guns. Okay,
(04:22):
then there's uh, I'm gonna say, lidar is that right? Yeah? Okay,
lit our guns. Um, it's also detection devices which can
detect your radar device. Um, they can do something called VASCAR,
which we'll talk about later. Um. Well, there's just a
bunch of different pacing. There's pacing. Yeah, there's a couple.
There's a couple of different ways. And I am I
(04:43):
missing any there. I think that's about it. That sounds
that sounds like most of them. The thing is, man,
whenever I see I'm just gonna give one one piece
of advice to people who are out. If you're out
on the interstate or something and you see the police officer,
the trooper or whomever it may be, um with the
(05:04):
gun out measure for speed, don't slam on your brakes
because there looks like when if you think about it,
if you're trying to catch someone's speeding, right, and you're
seeing this line of cars coming up and they're all
kind of go on the same speed and you want
to clock one of them, who are you gonna look for?
Are you gonna look for everybody's just driving like nothing's wrong?
Or the person who slams on their brakes and makes
(05:24):
their hood dip down the front end that the ground.
That's right. I've heard that. I mean, I'm sure there's
something to that. And that's one of the things that
you know, when we talk about all this as well
as we get into it. One of the things that
is that if you're in a group of cars, it's
much more difficult for them to single you out. If
you are alone, you're gonna get caught just about no
(05:44):
matter what. Because you know, some of the methods that
we talk about, some of the detection detection devices that
we're going to talk about, they're effective, but only if
you're in a group of people or somewhere is some
way to um, you're you're indistinguishable in a group that
you know, you can't figure out which one is that.
If you're the only car around, um, and he's got
(06:05):
a clock reading of a vehicle traveling and above a
certain speed, that's you. That is different. So okay, so
we're getting kind of we're getting off this. Um, let's
see where are you going to go? You know, actually,
let's just talk about this real quick. Radar detectors have
been around since the nineteen seventies. Right, yeah, that's wild.
(06:28):
I know. Now radar they've been using radar to clock
people since the nineteen fifties. But um, the detection devices
wouldn't come around until about the seventies. And if you recall,
those were called I think the orisin one is called
a fuzzbuster. Yeah you've probably heard that, just you know,
the slang term being used in the past. I know
I did. Uh, they were called that for a long
(06:48):
time up until least early nineties. I've heard them called fuzzbusters. Um.
And then there was one after that called the Super
Snooper I think was the name of that one. And
these are giant things. It's like a brick, yeah, that
you put on your on your dashboard and they're very
very obvious, have one big light on them, you know,
volume control and that's about it. And that's fine as
long as you're in a state where those devices are
(07:09):
legal exactly. Yeah, that's right. And there's uh, let's see,
I got a list of places where those are legal
and illegal. You want to Yeah, well segue into that.
Well let's see real real quick. Let's set the scene. Okay,
So what we're talking about, ways that people ways that
officers I guess catch you speeding are um. There's a
(07:32):
lot of science behind it, but basically this is a
really weird part. I just want to get this out. Now,
the same companies that sell those radar detectors sell the
radar guns, right, Yeah, that's uh, it's kind of a
funny thing. I don't know if it's the exact same
or not. Man, I've heard this in the past. I've
(07:52):
heard it too, And the funny thing is that I
swear i've heard that, but I know that the way
it works is kind of a cat and mouse game, yes,
and that you know, one one improves just a little
bit the other one. You know, they kind of they
sidestep it and figure like, well, we'll up the band
with on this or you know, we're going to adjust
at somehow so that it's undetectable, and the uh, you know,
(08:14):
then the other one it's up to them to update
in order to be able to catch up with that,
whether that's the detection or the device that actually clocks them.
Oh wait, Scott, hold on a second. I did this. Uh,
I did this kind of backwards. Okay, this was my bad.
We're talking about these things, but we're not talking about
how radar detectors work. Well, we need to know that. Yeah,
(08:34):
I'm sorry, man, you want to want as dependance as penance.
I will I will go ahead and just break this down,
and we get a lot of help from an excellent
article how radar detectors work. Isn't that handy? That is
handy and dandy, my friends. Um, okay, So basically here's
how it works. We live in a modern world. They're
(08:57):
invisible waves of radio signal all around us. Sorry, don't
where I got some tinfoil hats where you put those on?
So for any kind of remote any I'm sorry, not remote,
any kind of receiver that picks up radio signals, it
(09:17):
has to be tuned to a specific type of single
specific frequency. Um. And the reason that has to do
that is otherwise it will respond every time something transmits something. Right,
you know that that's just poor design. So the like
the receiver in a radio, right, we have this example
(09:39):
in the article, picks up the A M and the
FM frequencies or bands I'm sorry, bands would be those
and um, the police, however, use a different frequency because
you know, of course, you don't want to be driving
around listening to NPR or something and then here um
her police chatter. Right. Well, a lot of people would
(10:03):
actually I think a lot of people would. I would,
I would probably be there. Yes, strike what I said,
it just doesn't happen radio, right, So a radar detector
then is built to receive these frequencies. You gotta hand
up question. No, no, no, I'm just I'm just thinking
(10:24):
that they just thinking because um, you're talking about the guns, right, No,
I was talking about the detectors in the dash. The
detectors in the dash sense these uh, these frequencies emitted
from these radar guns. And the way that the radar
guns work, which we should segue into, uh, the way
(10:45):
they work is they spread out there actually transmitters and
receivers because it doesn't matter if they shoot out, um,
if they shoot out something toward a vehicle, because they'll
never know how how fast it's going. Less, they also
receive the light bouncing back right or not light excuse me,
(11:06):
radio waves and um. But we'll get into the light too.
I think we are going to talk about lights. You're
jumping ahead, I'm jumping all over. I'm like the clintin
Tarantino film overs. So yeah, So basically, these detectors are
tuned to pick up the frequency range used by the
police for radar guns. And so because radar guns amit
(11:29):
um they kind of have like a cone or a
sort of a circular dish antenna that concentrates the radio
signal and this wave spreads out over an area. And
so that's why you can get a beep or notice
from your radar detector when you cannot see a police officer,
(11:52):
which is like the whole point, you're catching it early.
You're you're catching early in fury. Now, these things, of
course aren't gonna do any good because the receivers, they're
not going to do you any good at all. If
a police officers as a speed trap without a gun,
or if a police officer comes up behind you and
turns one on, you're it's just there's you're getting into
(12:14):
some of the different ways that that they can catch
you besides using radar or lists even a right well,
boll okay, I understand, I get it now that you
know that that's just it's a receiver or senator and
as a rather transmitter and receiver for the gun. The
radar detector that you have in your car is just
a resistor receiver and it's tuned to to that band
(12:36):
that the gun is tuned to to their frequencies. Okay,
So so if you go down the list of of
the different types of bands that they have that are
you know, the bands that police radar uses. UH, there
are several different types. There's the X band, there's a
K band, and there's the k A band UM. Sometimes
they call that the super wide k A band. UM.
X band is really one of the easiest to detect,
(12:58):
and it's it is have notes here that are long gone.
They've gone away somehow. But UM, I heard that very
few police departments actually use UM the X band anymore.
So if you're buying a radar detector X band, you
know it may also have XPAN, but don't buy one
with just X band. Be sadly mistaken that, you know,
if that's gonna take company, you know, unless you're in
(13:20):
select states. And again you can look at these articles
and find out which ones which k BAN which is
I don't know, it's probably one of the more frequently
used ones at this point. UM. And then there's also
the K A band, which is a really wide frequency
range and it exceeds the k BAN limits UM and
again they call it wide band or super wide k
(13:42):
A ban UM. And this is the one that UM.
You know, if you have one if you have a
detector that can detect K band, it will not detect
K A band, So you have to be specific about
getting one. So you see what I mean when I
mentioned earlier this cat and mouse. You know, they start
out X and they moved up to K, then they
moved at to k A and then you know, who
(14:03):
knows what it's gonna be wats. But but here's the
thing ben about all these Now, remember that we said
that the radar detectors are receivers, right, yes, okay, well
did you know that there are radar detector detectors? Say
that one more time. Radar detector detectors. I have her
in Tennessee, we say, heard, tell of her? Tell of this? Understood? Yeah.
(14:26):
They they're used by the police. And if you're in
an area where radar detectors are illegal, the police can
scan traffic for people that are using a detector and
they'll be able to detect that you have a detector
in your car because of the frequency that that detector
gives off. There's a there's a um a signature, um
(14:46):
bandwidth that it's given off that they receive a signal.
Are these just your guard these just um ordinary police?
Officers are these special radar detector detective detectives. No, no,
I mean sorry, very good radar detector detector detector very good, no, no, okay,
so it but it's the point and they're actually a
(15:09):
small when any police officer can use Any police officer
can use those. But it's it's of course more prevalent
in the in the you know, the states and communities
in the world that um, you know, the the use
of detectors are illegal. And the thing is if they're
again this is another case where you know, if they're
they're broadcasting this the signal, you know, these r d
(15:30):
D signals at a big group of vehicles, they can't
tell which one has the radar detector um and they
have to be able to single you out. And if
you're the only vehicle around, of course they've got you know,
you're the one, okay because uh and remember they do
have the right to search your car, so um, you'll
be caught with it, so just be careful. All right. Now,
let's talk about different type of type, different type of radar.
(15:54):
But it's not really radar. It's uh, it's using light
like you mentioned earlier, some sort of light I see
it are because it gives you an idea of what
we're talking about here. It's the same type of thing.
This is a laser system. UM. It's called lidar, and
it's an acronym for light detection and raging okay, and
lidar is it's very similar. But it uses concentrated light
(16:17):
pulses of light and it reads them much in the
same way that you know, the radar detective works with
radio waves. This works with light rays, light waves confused,
but it you know, analyzes them the same way to
determine the vehicle speeds. So UM, the light beams are
a lot faster, and they're a lot more concentrated. They're
very very centralized. You can you can focus this much
(16:39):
greater than you can a radar gun such as said
spread exactly. And these are the type that if you
drive by a police officer and they've got the gun
up to their eyeball and they're looking through the through
the device at your vehicle, that's a lidar gun at
three US and there's a laser. Now let's also let's
also point out that these, uh, these are not visible light. No,
(17:02):
these are these are beyond visible light and UM so
you're not going to see the beam of light. Of course,
there are ways to Um, you may you may wonder
how you're gonna mask this or how you're gonna be caught.
There are detectors that detect this, and they detect you know,
if there's a m if there's a like a specific target,
you know, they will under they'll they'll be able to
read that. You know, it's quick because it's on off
(17:24):
um they call it, UM, I think it's popping's what
they call it. Because they just turn on and off.
It's real quick. He doesn't remain on like a radar
what remain on, so you don't get a constant signal.
Even more difficult to to exactly exactly. So one of
the things that you can do for um, you know,
protection in your case, I guess if you're a speeder,
(17:44):
is that you can buy a stealth coding for reflective
surfaces on your car, which include your headlights, your license plate,
your fog lights, something like that on the front of
the vehicle. Um. This stuff is expensive though, really yeah,
real expensive. How much is it? Five and a half ounces?
It's called stealth coding or something like that. You can
(18:04):
you can find versions of this online nine bucks and
you you brush it on with a brush. You brush
it on all the reflective surfaces of your car on
the front. I guess the next question is how much
is the ticket? Yeah? Right, yeah, Well they I mean
they have jammers. They have That's the other thing is
there's there are jammer systems and and that's effective with
laser system laser systems right there there. Yes, uh, Scott,
(18:28):
what I think you're talking about? And tell me if
I'm on base here is you're talking about the h
I guess they came along earlier later more recently, the
newer types of uh, non passive radar detectors. Yes, because
they jam it, they send out confusing signal that that
(18:51):
that disturbs the signal that the gun is receiving, sent
in receiving, and it's just enough to allow you to
adjust your speed. So what this does is this gives
you a little bit extra a little bit extra time
to to you know, back yourself down, get yourself within
the limit, you know, as you see it or you
hear it or whatever happens you know with the with
(19:12):
this device, this type of device, But they have radar
jammers and they also have laser jammers and um it
just masks your car's signal um that that they're receiving
and it's it does that via you know, well radio
noise on the radar signal um on on a laser system,
it has its own LEDs that are built in that
(19:32):
that produced kind of UM I don't know shield. I
guess almost like a light beam shield around your car.
That it sounds cool. Well, it kind of scrambles the
information exactly. It doesn't It doesn't receive the light in
the way that it normally would, and it confuses it
just enough so that you can bring it down to
to the right speed and then when they then they
(19:54):
check again hopefully you're within the range and then stuff,
I know it. And you know what their videos on
line of people using you know, these jammers and how
they work and everything and testing them and everything. But
I don't know, you know, there's another thing you can use,
um And I just thought about this. This is a okay.
The original detector detector was called VG and I think
(20:15):
there was VG two and the VG two then was
moved on to then they went up to something called
a specter. When there's a one, two and three specter.
So again this cat mouse thing back and forth. You know,
if you have you can get you can get a
radar detector with v G two invisibility, so you can
get so see that. That's what I'm saying is like
(20:36):
this is so back and forth that you know, like
they they've got a radar gun, they shoot it at
your car. You've got a radar detector, so you know
that they're shooting at your car. They've also got a
radar detector detector, and they know that you've got a
radar radar detector, right, so that you've got Now you've
got a v G two invisibility device on your detector
to shield yourself from that. And then they say, well,
(20:58):
I can't really tell what they're doing there, so I'm
gonna shoot them again. And you've got this jammer system
on there too. So it's just this maddening back and
forth you know that happens. And the problem is that
now we're starting to talk about radar detectors that are
in the five s dollar range, maybe even more. And
every time they upgrade this, you've got upgrade your equipment
as well, so it's getting expensive, just like any other
(21:21):
form of electronic device. These these devices do have a
shelf life. You know what what is it, planned opts,
lessons or whatever it's called. Yeah, exactly. You know they
know what they know when it's done. And you know,
you might if you're somebody who is used to having
one of these things around you, you will probably end
up buying one, you know, probably. Yeah. I I have
(21:44):
never owned one, never owned radar detector. I never had one,
just because I was never I think growing up, I
was never really clear. And I thought, and this is
a concern I've heard from other people. I thought, if
you get pulled over for anything, you know, um, people
will police officers will rightly make certain assumptions about you. Yeah,
(22:05):
they make notice of that. Yeah, because they'll know they
know what those look like. And I mean, at at best,
it's gonna be a funny conversation to you in the
copy where they say, uh, yeah, your brake lights out,
can just go get that fixed and go? Is that
the new the woman v G two invisibility be like
(22:25):
yeah kind of yeah, yeah, do a lot of speeding,
do your son? Uh, just them into detection. Let's see,
I see, I'll be right back. License and registration please
go right. But now you want to hear about just
a couple of low tech way this non electronic. Now,
well there's one that's electronic that I'm gonna mention, and
that's pacing. Um, okay, it can be done both ways.
(22:49):
Pacing can be done with a radar gun from behind.
You know that they can. The the police vehicles are
calibrated from the factory with the exact speed, so are
the guns. The guns are matched to the speed. You know,
they know exactly they're they're electronically calibrated, so they in
traffic will know a vehicle is you know, the device
itself knows that if you're in traffic going forty miles
(23:09):
an hour and you see a car pass you and
it's going, according to the device, thirty miles an hour
away from the car, it knows it's going seventy miles now, etcetera. Okay, Um,
that's that's the electronic version of this. Pacing is when
they just pull up next to you and they match
your speed in traffic and you don't recognize that they're
there next to you, and they're they're coming up behind
(23:30):
you and they stay with you. And I think there's
a limit a time limit. It has to be like
an eighth of a mile or something like that. There
has to be a measured distance where um, and I
wouldn't quote that, but something like that where they have
to match you for an eighth of a mile in
order to be able to get an honest reading, eliminate
the margin of beer as much as exactly. Yeah, yeah,
I paste him for you know, half a mile at
(23:51):
seventy five miles an hour, and that's why I gave
you a ticket for fifteen over whatever it was. Um.
Maybe one of the lowest tech ways to do this
ben just timing a vehicle between two known distance two
known points. The way that the way that we still
do the world's fastest like the land speed record exactly, yeah, exactly,
(24:13):
and the way that um, you know these are these
are the the way that drag races are measured. It's
just timing between a known distance at one point point
A and point b. Um. They do this from either
from a vehicle, and they can do it with a camera,
so it doesn't even have to be a man device.
They can they can do that with a camera and
and like a lot of these sites have said, it's
it's difficult to argue with videotape in court. It is tough. Yeah,
(24:36):
I would think so. So they either tape this happening
they do it with I mean, it can go as
low tech is having a stop watch in hand, um,
or it can be as high tech as you know,
having a timing device like what you find at the
at the racetrack. Um. The other way is that if
you're ever driven by the signs that say that the
speed is monitored from the air. Yes, that is how
they do it from the air. Also, they have large
(24:58):
marks on the ground that are marked off at you know,
a quarter mile, half mile, a mile, big marks that
you know it would be visible from the air. You
don't necessarily see them. They're on the side of the road.
They're they're wide, you know, big markings, but they're not
for you. That for the helicopter exactly. And they time
they time the time it travels for you to go
between point A and point B. And then there's a
formula that they that they plug those numbers into and
(25:18):
that determines your speed. And from there it's just a
matter of radio on ahead and and having the police
pull you over. Wow. So it's yeah, it's a lot
more simple than you might think. And uh, you know,
you'd never ever see a helicopter coming up from behind
or a small airplane. Can it can be done for
a small airplane, um, flying car whatever? Thank you, that's nice.
(25:39):
There's a little olive branch there. You're welcome. So okay,
we're going to reveal though. And of course this is
the part where another some other podcasts might make it
sound like a joke and like they're being clever or whatever.
But I think it's already clear that the best way
to avoid a speeding ticket is don't speed. Yeah, that's it,
(26:02):
you know, that is it? Yeah? You gotta. I mean
that's the only way to avoid a ticket, really is
is to just not do it. Not speed? Yeah, And
there's a lot of that kind of stuff. Is um
the officer's discretion, you know what I mean too? So
have you ever received a warning ticket? Uh, just a citation?
(26:22):
Like yeah, I've I've received a citation just I mean
just a warning ticket that says, hey, slow down. Next time,
I'll give you a real ticket. Yeah I got one
of those before. But um, this the I love that
you mentioned the camera thing because real real quick, I
am sure I know some of our listeners are around
uh intersections that have the cameras watching you. Um there
(26:48):
prevalent in Atlanta, you know what I mean, corner and
uh sometimes when you and I are off the air,
we're talking about different tricks that we see people try
to pull, like high in your license plate and stuff. Man,
I buddy of mine actually got um caught at an
intersection by a camera UM running the red light, and
(27:12):
she tried to argue about it. But well, from what
I understand, I don't know if this is true, bro,
but from what I understand when she went to court
to argue about it, that the hat that she was
wearing was the same hat she was wearing on the tape. Yeah,
and she was saying that's not me. I don't know
(27:33):
what she was saying. The tattoo on the forearm, yeah yeah, yeah, sorry,
I wasn't right, and social Security number on the side
of the car. But so, in my my opinion, it's
it's just so much easier to not have to participate
in this crazy laser radar arms race, because that's essentially
(27:56):
what it is. And UM, A lot of people though,
tell me that they're telling me um, you know, thank
God from my radar detector or um, I've only heard
people say that about radar detectors. I don't know anybody
who has shown up in my house and said, thank
Goodness for my jammer. No, no, you know, I've never
(28:17):
known anybody with the jammer. I don't think. I don't
know if you know what, Maybe they just don't talk
about it. Maybe that's yeah, you don't want a lot
of people to know. Maybe so it would be an
expensive feature on some of the newer models. So yeah,
I would think. Yeah, I don't know if it's factory
on any cars, that's sure. I don't think so. It
all should be on some cars and should be Yeah,
(28:38):
they should just let people be honest. If you buy Bugatti,
it should just come with some radar equipment. That's right,
complete stealth covering. Yeah, I'm gonna look into that. I
love this idea of this James Bond fantasy Monty Carlo
I'm building in my head. It's not invisibility pain, you
know that. Okay, well, I think you've maybe thought I'm
(29:00):
never mind. I'm going through here. I'll figure it out. Okay,
just got it. Let let the inspiration strike and while
I go away to uh wait for that stroke of
revelation that will let me know how to make my
car uh possibly invisible. Uh, we're gonna have to let
these folks go scott with time for us to head out.
(29:22):
Been long enough. What do you think about Facebook? Twitter?
I think I think we've got them. Yeah, we're we're
car stuff on their car stuff hs W. I think
on Twitter and we'd get the blog. We got a
great blog, got the got the website which has a
million articles. What I'm gonna say it is a billion articles,
billion auto articles, and I just about anything you'd want,
(29:45):
anything under the sun. And if you don't find it
on our website, you can send us an email at
car stuff at how stuff works dot com for more
on this and thousands of other topics. Is that how
stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think,
Send an email to podcast head how stuff works dot com.
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